Tag Archives: wine importer

So far in my blogging journey while I’ve touched on the wine side of Distorted Beverages it has really only been in passing. I love wine. It was the first real alcoholic beverage, or any beverage for that matter that I wanted to learn about and better understand. I’ve spent years, literally, tasting, reading, talking about and most importantly listening to the thoughts of others about wine. It is a complex and intricate subject.

Lately, however I’ve had a problem. I have found that my interest and excitement for wine has been replaced by craft beer. Now, this in itself is not the problem. The problem is that for quite some time, at least the past couple of years wine to me has been boring. Worse than that though I’ve become truly tired of pretentious wine drinkers and commentators. I don’t care how many bottles are in your cellar, how much you paid for that bottle of Grange or what wine scored the highest points in some critics new edition of their book. It doesn’t matter. Wine is the pure expression of the conditions in which it was grown, a great wine makers job is simply to harness that and do their best to stay out-of-the-way. Sadly many wine makers and so-called experts have become blind to this.

It was refreshing then and to be honest a relief that I came across this great blog by Joe Dressner, The Wine Importer. Joe has a very honest and down to earth opinion on wine and the way in which the wine industry has gone. In this particular blog post there is one paragraph that I would like to highlight that I was so happy to read.

Because the wine is not about me and not about my palate. Wine is not a vehicle for egomania, boastfulness and self-promotion. All the great “tasters” I have known are able to submerge their ego and understand what is in the bottle. Where it came from and where it is going. And they’ve done that without charts, tasting wheels or tortured prose likening wine to 57 different fruits (the Heinz Variety Tasting method).

Trust me when I say that this entire article is definitely worth reading. I interpret its point as simply being, “Ignore the clutter and noise, forget about trying to impress and enjoy the wine in front of you for what it is.”